In the aftermath of the tragic shooting in South Carolina, a shockingly racist hate crime, this bit piqued my interest:

What too many whites seem to demand from these families’ statements, however, isn’t really grace. As the journalist Jamelle Bouie pointed out, people like Santorum insist on what the German theologian and anti-Nazi freedom fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” — the “preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance” from those who have sinned. The forgiveness they want is so cheap that I can only call it “Wal-Mart grace”: low-priced but shoddy, destructive of real community and built on exploitation.

Source: LA Times editorial online at: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0625-baptist-charleston-forgiveness-20150625-story.html

The author goes on to suggest a theological error–that whites need to atone for their years of racism.  As if they could do so.  In fact, the heart of the gospel is this:  We cannot atone for our own sins.  Only Jesus can pay that price.

However, while we can’t atone for the past, we can choose a better future.  We go forward trying to live differently, and making what amends we can out of love and gratitude.  The word that the author should have chosen here is the word “repentance”.  This is the word that Bonhoeffer chose. For even as Jesus says “I forgive you”, he also says, “go, and sin no more.”  To do otherwise is indeed to cheapen that precious gift of grace.